YES

CLOSE TO THE EDGE (1972)
REMASTER
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With 1971's Fragile having left Yes poised quivering on the brink of what friend and foe acknowledged was the peak of the band's achievement, Close to the Edge was never going to be an easy album to make. Drummer Bill Bruford was already shifting restlessly against Jon Anderson's increasingly mystic/mystifying lyricism, while contemporary reports of the recording sessions depicted bandmate Rick Wakeman, too, as little more than an observer to the vast tapestry that Anderson, Steve Howe, and Chris Squire were creating. For it was vast. Close to the Edge comprised just three tracks, the epic "And You and I" and "Siberian Khatru," plus a side-long title track that represented the musical, lyrical, and sonic culmination of all that Yes had worked toward over the past five years. Close to the Edge would make the Top Five on both sides of the Atlantic, dispatch Yes on the longest tour of its career so far and, if hindsight be the guide, launch the band on a downward swing that only disintegration, rebuilding, and a savage change of direction would cure. The latter, however, was still to come. In 1972, Close to the Edge was a flawless masterpiece.

1. Close To The Edge
2. And You And I
3. Siberian Khatru

RELAYER (1974)
REMASTER
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Yes had fallen out of critical favor with Tales from Topographic Oceans, a two-record set of four songs that reviewers found indulgent. But they had not fallen out of the Top Ten, and so they had little incentive to curb their musical ambitiousness. Relayer, released 11 months after Tales, was a single-disc, three-song album, its music organized into suites that alternated abrasive, rhythmically dense instrumental sections featuring solos for the various instruments with delicate vocal and choral sections featuring poetic lyrics devoted to spiritual imagery. Such compositions seemed intended to provide an interesting musical landscape over which the listener might travel, and enough Yes fans did that to make Relayer a Top Ten, gold-selling hit, though critics continued to complain about the lack of concise, coherent song structures.

1. Gates Of Delirium
2. Sound Chaser
3. To Be Over

GOING FOR THE ONE (1977)
REMASTER
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Going for the One is perhaps the most overlooked item in the Yes catalog. It marked Rick Wakeman's return to the band after a three-year absence, and also a return to shorter song forms after the experimentalism of Close to the Edge, Tales from Topographic Oceans, and Relayer. In many ways, this disc could be seen as the follow-up to Fragile. Its five tracks still retain mystical, abstract lyrical images, and the music is grand and melodic, the vocal harmonies perfectly balanced by the stinging guitar work of Steve Howe, Wakeman's keyboards, and the solid rhythms of Alan White and Chris Squire. The title track features Howe on steel guitar (he's the only prog rocker who bothers with the instrument). "Turn of the Century" and the album's single, "Wonderous Stories," are lovely ballads the way only Yes can do them. "Parallels" is the album's big, pompous song, so well done that in later years the band opened concerts with it. Wakeman's stately church organ, recorded at St. Martin's Church, Vevey, Switzerland, sets the tone for this "Roundabout"-ish track. The concluding "Awaken" is the album's nod to the extended suite. Again, the lyrics are spacy in the extreme, but Jon Anderson and Squire are dead-on vocally, and the addition of Anderson's harp and White's tuned percussion round out this evocative track.

1. Going For The One
2. Turn Of The Century
3. Parallels
4. Wonderous Stories
5. Awaken

DRAMA (1980)
REMASTER
320 KBPS

For this one album, ex-Buggles Geoffrey Downes and Trevor Horn were drafted in to replace Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman. It rocks harder than other Yes albums, and for classically inclined fans, it was a jarring departure; but it was a harbinger of Yes and Asia albums to come. A newly emboldened Chris Squire lays down aggressive rhythms with Alan White, and Steve Howe eschews his usual acoustic rags and flamenco licks for a more metallic approach, opting for sheets of electric sound. Prime cuts include the doom-laden "Machine Messiah" and the manic ska inflections of "Tempus Fugit." Despite the promise of this new material, the band soon fell apart; Horn went into production, Howe and Downes joined Asia, and Squire and White toyed and then gave up on a pair-up with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, which was to be titled XYZ (i.e., Ex-Yes and Zeppelin).

1. Machine Messiah
2. White Car
3. Does It Really Happen?
4. Into the Lens
5. Run Through the Light
6. Tempus Fugit
Bonus tracks
7. Into The Lens (I am a camera) (single version)
8. Run Through The Light (single version)
9. Have We Really Got To Go Through This
10. Song No.4 (Satellite)
11. Tempus Fugit (tracking session)
12. White Car (tracking session)
13. Dancing Through The Light
14. Golden Age
15. In The Tower
16. Friend Of A Friend

BIG GENERATOR (1987)
320 KBPS

The four-years-in-the-making follow-up to Yes' comeback album, 90125, Big Generator was also a million-selling hit, although not as successful as its predecessor, probably because the singles "Love Will Find a Way" (number 30) and "Rhythm of Love" (number 40) couldn't match "Owner of a Lonely Heart" from the previous LP, even if they were favorites on AOR radio at the time. Actually, it was the title track that was a carbon copy of "Owner," so maybe that was the problem. More likely, though, "Owner" was a one-shot (courtesy of producer Trevor Horn), and as Yes asserted itself more here, the band reverted more to its old style, making for some confusion. Nevertheless, this album was Yes' last major hit.

1. Rhythm Of Love
2. Big Generator
3. Shoot High Aim Low
4. Almost Like Love
5. Love Will Find A Way
6. Final Eyes
7. I'm Running
8. Holy Lamb

TALK (1994)
320 KBPS

Between 1992-94, Yes had the bad luck to sign a contract with a new label which went bankrupt later. The new label wanted the 90125 line-up, so the main responsibility fell in Trevor Rabin, who again did the best job he could, recording this album in his studio, using computers and advanced recording technology. So, one of the things I don`t like very much from this album is the very "clear and clean" sound of the tracks, very processed by studio technology. But the album is still good, maybe the most "progressive" done by this line-up, with also having the most Radio oriented song from all the songs of this album (I heard it in the Radio), "Walls", a song composed by Rabin with Roger Hodgson (ex- Supertramp) and Jon Anderson. The best songs are: "I am Waiting" (the best of all), "State of Play" (the heaviest of all) and "Endless Dream" (Rabin`s "Awaken", as I call it). "I Am Waiting" is a very good ballad. "State of Play" is almost heavy metal, with very good drums and guitars. "Endless Dream" has a mixture of Rabin`s style with some of the old Yes of the seventies. As Rabin played the main keyboards in this album, Tony Kaye`s organ is there only sometimes.

1. The Calling
2. I Am Waiting
3. Real Love
4. State Of Play
5. Walls
6. Where Will You Be
7. Endless Dream
a) Silent Spring (Instrumental)
b) Talk
c) Endless Dream